Two-Part Story

This Sunday, churches that use the RCL will hear in Luke 4 what is recorded for us as Jesus' first sermon. Thankfully, it is short: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." At this point in Luke's gospel account, Jesus has been announced, been born, been presented in the temple, been left behind as a child, been baptized, and been tempted in the wilderness. In other words, a lot has happened to Jesus, but his return to his hometown synagogue, where he reads from what we know as Isaiah 61, represents his first act of public ministry as an adult. (As a child, he also did some teaching in the temple.) As Luke recalls Jesus' ministry, this is where it starts, and it's pretty impressive.

Jesus doesn't say much, but he says everything. With one sentence, Jesus defines his own expectations for his ministry. He will be the one "to bring good news to the poor...to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,to let the oppressed go free, [and] to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Those are messianic expectations and particular ones. Jesus does not quote Malachi's "refiner's fire and fuller's soap." Nor does he point to Jeremiah's "day of retribution...vindication from [God's] foes." His ministry is good news for poor people and freedom for the oppressed.

This week, our parish, which takes its name from St. Paul, will divert from the RCL to observe the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. I don't like breaking from the RCL cycle, but the rubrics in the BCP allow it: "The feast of the Dedication of a Church, and the feast of its patron or title, may be observed on, or be transferred to, a Sunday, except in the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter" (p. 16). And it's our Annual Meeting Sunday, so it makes for a nice occasion. Unfortunately, instead of good news for the poor, we'll hear about getting dragged before councils and families betraying one another to death (see Matthew 10:16-22). Luke is the only gospel writer who tells us what Jesus said about Isaiah 61, and it's a shame to skip it. The good news, though, is that next week gives us another chance to hear about it.

This Sunday's gospel lesson is only half of the story. Jesus preaches a nice sermon, but then he explains what that means. Next week, we'll join the congregation in wrestling with the reality behind Jesus' words, and we may, like them, find ourselves chasing Jesus out of the synagogue and toward the edge of a cliff. But that needs to wait until next week. Still, because it's coming, that might change how we hear and preach the first half of the story.

Jesus' message of good news for the poor sounds great, but it was enough to anger the congregation. That sounds like they heard good news for the poor as it is yoked to bad news for the rich. Jesus had a particular economy in mind, but this wasn't a magic world in which money grows on trees. It's our world, the same world with the same limited resources that are largely controlled by the few. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, which means redistributing that wealth. We can save the punch line for next Sunday, but don't lose sight of it this week. The truth is coming.